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Keyboard Shortcuts You Didn’t Know You Needed

We often find ourselves rushing through work on a laptop and stumbling through some awkward sequences of button-pushing in order to get something done quickly. The problem with specifically using a laptop is that you normally have to move your hand between the touchpad and the mouse to switch between them, or move the cursor between completely different areas of the screen with fast-paced precision.

What if there was a more convenient way to do many of those things that you never even realised? Check out this list and see if you learn any that you can put to good use.

Back – Alt + Left

Many of us may be used to using the backspace key to go back while browsing the web, but this function can be inconsistent and isn’t useful if you’ve selected an area that can be typed on. This dedicated shortcut may be a better choice.

Reopen last tab – Ctrl + Shift + T

This is one of the most useful keyboard shortcuts we’ve found. When you’re multi-tasking in a web browser, closing something important is an easy mistake to make. This key combination restores the last tab you had open (and if you keep pressing, it works backwards through your recently closed pages).

Find – CTRL + F

This is an extremely useful command that works in web browsers, word processors, messaging clients and many more everyday apps. This makes picking out relevant terms much faster than relying on skim reading.

Highlight – Shift + Left/Right

Ever had the frustration of trying over and over again to highlight a particular piece of text in the middle of a paragraph? To do this more accurately, train yourself to forget clicking and dragging. Hold shift and use the arrow keys to precisely highlight a snippet.

Paste without formatting – Ctrl + Shift + V

Most of us are familiar with Ctrl + V as a paste shortcut, but what if you need to remove formatting before doing that? You can paste into Notepad or another area that doesn’t support rich formatting before copying and pasting again, but who has the time? In Chrome or Firefox, hold shift when you paste to skip this step.

Snap – Windows + Left/Right/Up/Down

Windows 10 makes it easy to arrange your windows side by side on a messy desktop with this little-known feature. If you hold the Windows key, you can use the arrows to cycle through different configurations for your currently selected window. It takes seconds to snap all your windows into a sensible combination without having to click and drag the edges.